Points Inflation on Hacker News

Is it harder to get to the HN front page now than it used to be? This is a very difficult question to answer. Are points on HN worth less today than they used to be? This is easier to answer — yes.

Here's a graph showing the median score of HN front page submissions over time. The dots represent the median score of a front-page submission in a given month, with the orange line (6-month rolling average) showing the general trend. The grey area represents the upper and lower quartiles of front-page scores.

The median today, in 2018, is around 150 points — double what it was when I joined the site in 2011. With a bit of hand-waving, we might be able to claim that "HN points are worth half as much in 2018 as they were in 2011".